


Trajectory

by vulpesvortex



Category: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Post-Film
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 14:10:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3653313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulpesvortex/pseuds/vulpesvortex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the meet in Seattle, Brandt shares what secrets he can with Benji.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trajectory

“Clear the air with Ethan?” Benji asked.

Benji was waiting for him. More precisely, Benji was leaning against the railing a little ways down the quay from where Ethan had called to meet them, texting on his regular cellphone. Hitting send, he looked up, tilting his head at him curiously.

“Y-yeah.” Brandt was still getting used to the relief, the feeling of elation rushing through him at Ethan’s revelation. The heavy leaden weight was gone from his stomach and shoulders at last, the press of guilt at the back of his throat releasing to let him taste the salty seaport air, the wafting dinner smells from the various eateries at the waterfront. He took a deep breath. “Yeah, we’re alright.” _I’m alright._

He still couldn’t quite believe it.

Benji couldn’t quite either, from the looks of it. He frowned, and Brandt felt a pang of regret that he couldn’t tell him. He realized he desperately wanted to share his secret. He wanted Benji not to look at Ethan with quietly sympathetic eyes when he wasn’t looking. He looked that way at Will too.

He wanted, with an unexpected urgency, for Benji to know that he hadn’t fucked up.

Benji threw a questioning look at Brandt’s hands, buried deep in his jacket pockets, and Will drew out the IMF phone. That, at least, was a question he _could_ answer.

“I’m glad. I wasn’t sure you were going to,” Benji said.

“I wasn’t.”

“Did you want to?”

“Yes. Of course,” Brandt added, because he realized that might not have been clear.  He hadn’t felt as _right_ as he’d felt on the Dubai-Mumbai mission since Quantico, way back in the day, when he’d set the first step in the direction of intelligence work and the IMF. That night in the train car in Moscow, he’d almost backed out, but almost before the next day was out, they’d synthesized into something he hadn’t known in years. By the time they touched ground in Mumbai, they’d been a team, ready to face the worst baptism-by-fire in the history of the IMF and squeak through okay. “I just…didn’t think I could face Ethan. I couldn’t imagine he’d _want_ me on the team. That it could work, with me there.” He held up a hand to ward off Benji’s protests. “He convinced me otherwise.”

“Good. ‘Cause otherwise I’d’ve had a go too,” Benji said determinedly. “We all…clicked. We _worked_.  It’d be a shame to throw that away. And,” Benji hesitated, “what happened…that wasn’t your fault, Will. I hope Ethan told you that.”

Brandt averted his eyes. “Yeah.” He couldn’t compromise Ethan’s trust and Julia’s safety, and he couldn’t look Benji in the eye without betraying himself.

Christ, he wanted to tell him. He didn’t want Benji to look at him like he was tainted somehow, stained with failure. He wanted Benji to look at him with trust and companionship, with the admiration he gave Jane and Ethan, with the sense of instinctive partnership they had shared avoiding the deathclimb at the Burj, and the sleek amusement from Mumbai.

Brandt finally looked up and realized that Benji was looking at him with all those things. A gentle smile graced his lips; it looked hopeful and, miraculously, fond.

“I don’t think I thanked you.”

Benji frowned. “What for?”

“For saving my life back there. In India.” With a wry smile, Brandt added, “All our lives really, but, you know, mine particularly.”

They stood quietly next to each other on the bridge, overlooking the bay blackly shimmering in the moonlight, the colored lights from the shops shifting on the water.

Brandt lightly bumped Benji with his shoulder.  “We didn’t get vaporized.”

Benji half-turned to him, gifting him with a slow smile that spread determinedly into a full-blown grin. The hard bones of his shoulder pressed reassuringly back against Will’s.

“We didn’t get vaporized,” Benji repeated after him, a tone of wonder slipping into the words. He shook himself a little, a mischievous glint appearing in his blue eyes, and he clapped his hands together. “I think that deserves a drink, don’t you?”

“Well, if that doesn’t, we definitely do,” Brandt agreed. 

 

*****

 

They got themselves a beer. And then another, and then two more, because, what the hell, they’d gotten within seconds of starting a nuclear war with the Russians and ending the world. Benji had Guinness, so Brandt teased him as their glasses perspired on their tacky little table in the corner of a rowdy café, and Benji teased him right back about American beer tasting like goat’s piss and containing about as much alcohol besides.

“Actually it’s an urban myth that American beer has a lower alcohol percentage than European beer,” Will said, tempted to launch into an explication of the world history of alcohol production when Benji groaned and put his head on the table, rendering the exposition redundant, its intended goal having been achieved. “It’s got to do with whether you’re measuring by weight or volume.”

“I know that, Brandt,” Benji said primly, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the shit-eating grin he shot Will over the edge of his glass when he took a sip from his dark, dark beer and the small flecks of foam clinging at the corners of his mouth. “It’s not polite to bring facts into the equation when I’m shit talking you.”

“My apologies,” Will snorted, wiping his mouth with a grin. Benji’s eyes sparkled at him, and his leg had tucked up against his in the corner seat somewhere between their second and third beers. Will felt flushed with warmth, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t just the crowded bar or the alcohol.

 

*****

 

By the time the waitress brought them their fifth round, Benji was sprawled into the corner seat, his head lolling against the back and his eyes half-closed in sleepy alcoholic bliss. Brandt was leaned forward, elbows on the table, watching Benji across his shoulder. He couldn’t stop smiling. Benji looked so loose and happy, nothing like the tensely nervous man that had sat at the table with the others a few hours ago, cracking jokes about his nightmares.

Will swallowed, leaning back against the seat. He hadn’t realized Benji had put his arm along the back, and his cheek ended up pressing against the inside of Benji’s biceps. “You mentioned you weren’t sleeping well,” he prodded softly.

Benji’s eyes widened, surprised. Will could see a brief flicker of emotion cross his face before it was quickly swept under Benji’s habitual mask of blundering amusement. Benji started to say something in that light, self-deprecating tone that Will was quickly coming to hate with a passion and Brandt clenched his jaw, putting a hand on Benji’s arm to stop him.

“It’s not nothing,” he said determinedly. “But it’s alright, it’s normal. Means you still got a,” he waved a hand down at his chest, his heart, “functioning fear response, survival instincts, animal pea brain still kicking up sparks. ‘S when you sleep like a baby after something like this you start worrying.”

Benji pressed his lips together, looking away for a moment. “Thanks.”

“ _De nada_ ,”  Will assured him. “And I’m just gonna tell you right now, in the spirit of getting this official team partnership deal off the ground properly, that you don’t gotta hide that stuff with me, okay? I get that _this_ ,” he made a masking motion in front of his own face, “is your way of dealing with stuff, which, you know, is fine. But I’m just putting it out there that if you wanna let it slip a little you don’t gotta keep it up for my benefit.”

Which really wasn’t his place to say probably, not after knowing the guy for all of three days, but, you know, five beers and narrowly avoided death and all that, Brandt cut himself some slack. If Benji took offense maybe he’d just start ordering shots and hope Benji didn’t remember this conversation the next day.

But Benji didn’t take offense. Instead he smiled, bright and sweet and a little heartbreaking, and then it widened into a wolfish grin that sent a shot of electricity straight into Will’s gut. And there _was_ one more secret he could share.

Feeling reckless, and like he’d already put himself out there in all the ways that mattered anyway, Will returned the look. “And,” he said, ignoring the urge to swallow hard, “I might be willing to help you with your sleeping problem, if you were, um, interested.”

“Oh? “ Benji's tone made a show of intrigued interest. “And how do you propose to do that?”

“I believe a bedpartner is supposed to significantly lower the incidence of nightmares, as does physical exertion prior to sleep.” His voice was smooth and dry as a medical brochure. _Sweet._ Brandt mentally high-fived himself. 

Benji raised an eyebrow, cracking a crooked smile. “Oh, will it now?”

Brandt knocked back his beer and shrugged, struggling to keep down his own grin. “That’s what I hear.”

Benji laughed, downing the rest of his beer in one go. “Subtle,” he said mockingly, getting up and grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair. “But I accept.”

 

*****

 

Brandt was letting the fresh night air cool his cheeks, closing his eyes to feel it pummel him back into awareness, dispelling the alcohol fog from his mind and limbs. “So, where are we going?” Benji asked when Brandt caught up to him at the railing.

He realized they were standing almost exactly like they had four hours ago, leaning against the railing overlooking the waterfront, buzzing with happy exhilaration at a new beginning. 

Brandt took another step towards him, closing the distance between them, and grabbed Benji by the neck and kissed him hard. Benji's body slotted against him thigh to shoulder, a wonderfully warm contrast to the cold night air, and Benji wrapped his arms around Will’s shoulders to keep him there, moaning quietly into his mouth. Will took advantage and deepened the kiss, the hand on Benji’s neck tightening briefly as Will let out a pleased groan as he was welcomed inside.

When they broke apart, Will gave a breathless laugh, feeling light as anything. “Wherever you wanna go. I really don’t care.”

“Mmmh,” Benji hummed, leaning in for another kiss. “I quite like it here.”

“Mmm, I agree,” Will said, a hand sliding under Benji’s jacket to rest on his hip. He went in for another kiss, because, seriously, _awesome_. Benji gave back as good as he got, his hands anchored with reassuring strength to Will’s shoulders and neck. “No bed, though.”

“You raise a compelling point,” Benji said flippantly, licking his lips. “I’ve got a hotelroom near the university. We can get a cab.”

Brandt considered that. “That’s not too far. Let’s walk,” he suggested. With Benji pressed up all warm against him, and kissing his neck, and smiling up at him like they were in cahoots, Brandt suddenly found himself at ease to take things slow. The night air was comfortable, and the stars and moon were lovely and bright and shimmering on the bay. He wanted, as they said, to stop and smell the roses.

“You’re a hopeless romantic, I have no idea how you ended up in this line of work,” Benji said, rolling his eyes, but he took Will’s hand and started down the boulevard, shooting him a glitter-eyed look over his shoulder. Will’s legs stumbled into motion, and then they were moving down the way, kissing heatedly against the wooden railing whenever they couldn’t resist each other anymore. Someone tsk’d at them, but Will didn’t give a shit, they’d earned this. _You’d all be dead if not for us_ , he thought, licking vindictively into Benji’s mouth and groping him for good measure.

He could see their trajectory unfolding in his mind’s eye like one of the tactical maps he’d studied at Quantico, the meandering path along the river to the hotelroom where he’d tumble Benji onto the bed (or be tumbled, he really wasn’t fussed about the details at the moment), to the 6 A.M. airplane that would take them from King’s County International to whatever undisclosed location their next mission took them to, to infiltrate the Syndicate and doubtlessly stop and kill some bad people. The path telescoped further into the future, to other missions, other mornings, other hotelrooms he’d tumble into with Benji, days bright as hope.  

He thought with delight of this moment, this evening, as the first dot on the line, the first of many.

He couldn’t wait to get started.   

 


End file.
